She Gets it Done

By Renee LePere

Common goals and hard work—these are the words that define the majority of Florida’s realtors, says Betty Jean Christensen. As the district vice president of the Florida Association of Realtors in 2006, she worked as a liaison between the state headquarters of the organization and realtors from Cape Coral to Marco Island. But the thing she learned most from her tenure at FAR was how similar all of the realtors truly are.

"No matter who I worked with, I saw that everybody has the same issues and the same goals," Christensen says. "I truly started to understand the camaraderie in this industry."

During her term as a FAR vice president, Christensen focused on realtor education, training and involvement in vital housing-related issues in the region. In 2006, local realtors were dealing with hot topics like clean water, the environment and skyrocketing homeowners insurance.

"We have to get the insurance prices back in line," she says. "When the insurance and taxes on a home are higher than a mortgage payment, something’s wrong."

Christensen’s commitment with FAR didn’t surprise Jim Scartz, incoming president of the Bonita Springs-Estero Association of Realtors. Scartz has known Christensen for seven years and worked with her when she served as the 2004 president of the Bonita Springs-Estero group.

"She’s a charmer; she’s witty and honest and direct," Scartz said. "She’s a bottom-line person when she needs to be. She gets it done."

Christensen’s career started in south Miami in 1971. Florida was still largely undeveloped. The big theme parks didn’t exist. South Beach was dilapidated. "Back then, if you were in real estate, you were really on your own," Christensen says.

Working in a small real estate office, she hit the streets to get her first sale. "I just got in the car and started driving, and I saw this couple standing outside a house," she says. "I brought them back to the office. I said to the boss, ‘Well, I got you a buyer, now what do I do with them?’"

Christensen’s career and approach have changed significantly since that first sale. She is still active in residential and commercial brokerage, as well as rentals and property management. She and her husband, Wilson Dove, moved to Southwest Florida in 1989. They now run their Bonita Springs-based company, Dove Realty.

"It was scary moving from such a big market to a smaller one. Naples really was still a small town when we moved here," she says. "People would talk to you, help each other out, which was refreshing. The east coast [of Florida] is very intense."

Since moving here, the real estate market in the Naples-Fort Myers area has fluctuated. In the aftermath of Hurricane Charley in 2004, real estate prices soared due to a speculative market. Three years later, it has slowed significantly.

"After Charley, the market was very investor driven," Christensen said. Any time you have a severely investor-driven market, it’s not necessarily realistic. Prices are leveling off now."

While she says the current market is one of the slowest she’s seen, it’s a great time to purchase.

"If you’re a buyer in this market—wow!" she says. "I’d be looking really hard right now."
For her fellow real estate agents, she says, "hang in there and get back to basics—contacting customers, following up and letting customers know what’s going on in the market."

But showing homes and closing deals aren’t the only tasks for today’s realtors. Christensen says many are involved formally and informally in the issues that affect the local market, from the environment to taxes.

"A lot of people think that all we do is sell houses," she says. "But the message I heard the loudest and the most often during my work with FAR is that realtors are friends of their communities."